Patient monitoring can take a variety of forms and can gather a wide variety of physiological data. The display of such data, including what is displayed and how it is displayed, can affect the ability of caregivers, such as doctors and nurses, to interpret and act on the data. For example, intracranial pressure (ICP) is a standard monitoring modality for traumatic brain injury patients. Medical guidelines may prescribe threshold values for intracranial pressure. The guidelines of the Brain Trauma Foundation, for example, indicate that clinical action should be taken to reduce intracranial pressure if the intracranial pressure exceeds 20-25 mmHg. However, numerous factors can cause transient changes to intracranial pressure, including patient physiology, monitoring system noise, and actions taken by a caregiver.
To monitor a patient, caregivers typically use monitoring devices such as the Codman ICP Express device 100, which is shown in FIG. 1, available from Codman & Shurtleff, Inc. of Raynham, Mass. As shown, the device 100 has a display of intracranial pressure and a display of systolic and diastolic values for the intracranial pressure, as well as an alarm. A caregiver can look at the display to ascertain the intracranial pressure. Caregivers also use charts, e.g., a caregiver can manually record an event in a chart associated with a patient.
One drawback with current monitoring devices is that the devices only provide a limited amount of patient data. Caregivers thus only have a limited picture of a patient's condition from a monitoring device on which to base decision making regarding treatment of the patient. It can therefore be difficult for caregivers to make clinical decisions based on the patient data displayed on a monitoring device without taking additional time to review other patient records, e.g., paper files. Taking this additional time can adversely affect patient treatment, particularly in critical care situations, such as situations involving traumatic brain injury patients, where treatment delays can greatly exacerbate injuries or otherwise be particularly problematic. Moreover, such considerations are applicable not just to intracranial pressure, but to a wide variety of patient monitoring modalities involving other physiological parameters.
Accordingly, there remains a need for improved methods, systems, and devices for monitoring and displaying medical parameters for a patient.